Asian Americans Archives - Julia Flynn Siler

Chinatown Rising

July 3, 2019 by Julia Flynn Siler 2 Comments

Earlier this month, I saw the new film “Chinatown Rising” in San Francisco. It’s a new documentary directed by Harry Chuck and Josh Chuck, a father and son team. Both of them have been deeply involved with Cameron House, whose early history I explore in my latest book.

The Rev. Harry Chuck, a social activist and now filmmaker, was a youth director and then Executive Director of Cameron House. He mentioned to his son Josh, who also worked at Cameron House over the years, that he was thinking about getting rid of some film reels that had been sitting in his garage for decades. Josh asked if he could see them first.

Seeking Refuge on the “Castle” Grounds

April 22, 2019 by Julia Flynn Siler 4 Comments

I’ve walked or biked past our local “castle” hundreds of times: Its Romanesque Revival campus perched on a hillside above my home town has a magical quality to it, particularly at dusk. In the days when our boys were reading J.K. Rowling’s books, it seemed as if Harry Potter might swoop through it spires any moment during a Quidditch match.

The San Francisco Theological Seminary

Debunking the “White Rescue Myth”

February 18, 2019 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

The best-known image of the pioneering anti-trafficking crusader Donaldina Cameron at work was taken in the early 20^th century in a garbage-strewn alley in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Donaldina Cameron (left, standing) with interpreter and police officers staging a rescue of a Chinese girl. Courtesy of Cameron House.

Cameron, wearing a full black skirt that fell just above her ankles and a dowdy, small- brimmed hat, gazes toward the camera. A man in a suit stands partway up a ladder propped against a brick building. On a balcony above him, a man who appears to be a plainclothes police officer holds a girl in his arms. She has a long black braid hanging down her back and is the “slave girl” supposedly being rescued.

The Fight to End Modern Slavery

January 24, 2019 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

January was Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a designation of heartbreaking relevance to my home state of California. Not only does it remain one of the nation’s leading hubs for sex and labor trafficking; the state is also home to a host of non-profit organizations who fight the crimes of sex and labor slavery year-round.

Map showing locations of human trafficking cases in 2017, as tracked by anti-trafficking organization Polaris.

Remembering 1882

May 7, 2017 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

On Saturday, May 6^th, several hundred protestors gathered in San Francisco’s historic Portsmouth Square in Chinatown carrying such signs as “Remember 1882” and “2017 Has Become 1882.”

They were there to mark the 135^th anniversary of the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first law implemented to exclude a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the U.S. It was one of the most shamefully racist pieces of legislation ever enacted in America and was repealed in 1943.